With its large population, Vietnam is recognised as a potential market
offering many opportunities for foreign investors in medicine and health
care.
The comment was made by Allan Yeo, Chief Executive of the
Happy Hospital under Singapore’s Thomson Medical Centre, which is
planning to expand investment in Vietnam.
In comparison with
other fields like finance, securities and real estate, the health
service was a less lively field in the panorama of foreign investment in
Vietnam.
Dau Tu (Investment) newspaper on August 8 said that
foreign investment inflow in Vietnam’s health sector had been boosted
with information on the Indian group Fortis Healthcare intending to buy
50 percent of shares of Ho Chi Minh City’s Hoan My Medical Group through
an agreement worth 100 million USD.
If successful, the
transaction would help Fortis Healthcare to increase its presence in
Asia, where the Economist Magazine’s EIU forecast the per capita
expenditure for health services to increase 55 percent in the 2010-2015
period.
Many foreign investors have operated effectively in
Vietnam’s health sector and expanded their scale of operation, for
example the Vien Dong Co. Ltd, which invested in the France-Vietnam
Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City, and the Thomson Medical Centre with its
Happy Hospital.
According to Allan Yeo, among foreign investors
involving Vietnam’s health service, Singapore is considered the country
with the greatest potential.
Recently, Parkway Health of
Singapore, Asia’s leading private medical group, entered the Vietnam
market by becoming manager of the HCM City high-tech health centre,
invested by the Hoa Lam-Shangri-La joint venture./.